2. Quantitative Rating: Tire combinations were rated on multiple quantitative factors on a 1-5 scale with 5 being the best score, 3 being an average score and 1 being far below expectations. The average quantitative rating was calculated as an average of the 5 individual rider scores on each attribute.

There have been online reports of faster tread wear on the Schwalbe tires, but we have not seen faster tread wear or undercutting of tread blocks in the eight months that we’ve had Schwalbe tires on our demo bike fleet. The more organic nature of our trails compared to more rocky trails elsewhere may be mitigating any tendencies that Schwalbe tires have for faster wear.

What does organic mean? Pine needles and loam? The Big Betty has been the only Schwalbe that I've used that had a decent life span.

I rather like the Ardent as a rear tire as it has a predictable drift to it but as you stated, the braking isn't very good. Besides the Minions you state that you are going to test in November I'd be interested in what your crew thinks of a WTB Vigalante (F) Riddler (R) combo.

By organic, I mean trails as you might find in Western WA, the Midwest, Northeast and Southeast. Any rocks we encounter have been buffed out pretty smooth. No rough granite or the like that tends to eat tires. I do see that lots of riders in the Southwest (CO, UT, NV, AZ) seem to have wear issues with the Schwalbes.

We might test the Riddler along with the Rock Razor next summer. Since we've only done three comparison tests to date and they have been intended to help determine what tires we carry, we've focused on more mainstream designs